Consumption Bar Experience

Well, it's good to know that at the very least, your venue knows it's rude to have your guests open their wallets.

@Kristina our venue only does consumption, and since they have a bar, they don't allow outside beverages. And yes, the 12 drinks per a person thing is what I'm concerned about. I have no problem paying for a few drinks per person, but I'm really iffy about a completely open consumption bar (for reasons I've already mentioned.)

@Ziegler Holy shit that is cheap! Great job landing that!

@MNA ok great.

If you threw a dinner party would you ever tell your guests they could have beer or wine, or the hard stuff for $8 a drink? Of course you wouldn't, because that would be impossibly rude and terrible hosting. If you couldn't offer liquor for some reason, like finances, you would just offer beer and wine. Would a guest ever feel justified in being salty you didn't have an option to buy liquor under those circumstances? Of course not. Hosting a wedding is just like hosting at home. Do you have the option to do one or two signature cocktails? It's a great option for cases like this. Usually one is vodka based and one is rum or whiskey or bourbon based. If you can't host everyone without guests paying for things, consider cutting the guest list. I know you can afford beer and wine, but if providing liquor is that important, then make cuts to do so. Don't shove the cost of hosting properly onto your guests.

Cash bars - of any kind - are rude and confusing. I certainly wouldn't be happy you're making me pay.

Generally when doing the calculations figure 2 drinks the first hour per person and 1 drink per hour after that. I am also considering doing a consumption bar with beer and wine. I don't have many wine drinkers, and beers are $5-7 at my venue. Open bar was $25 for the first two hours and $13 per hour after. My wedding is during the day and I have 27 people Including us as of now. Lunch reception is 3.5 hours.

I would be very nervous about a consumption based bar. People drink more when it is free, and when they plan ahead how to get home. They may grab a drink, have half of it, leave it at the table, go dance, then get another.

I'm doing consumption bar, it's the only way my venue offers their bar bill because their drinks are craft beer. Due to their ABC license, we can only offer select alcohol options: (excellent!) beer, wine and cider.

We get a small price break because of our contract. Essentially, most drinks will come out to $5. We have 40 guests, 35 of which are over 21 and will likely drink. We're anticipating the drinks to cost ~$2500 including 9.3% and 20% service charge. This is roughly 8 drinks pp, but it also includes if people order more expensive items, coffee, soda, ice tea etc.

And we're paying for every dime.

Yeah, that's the risk. But it's their choice to drink or not drink something.

I'm definitely going to have 2-3 beers, maybe some cider, and coffee with dessert. So 5 drinks just for me, minimum?

We had a small wedding (35 guests) and we had a consumption bar at the restaurant where we celebrated after our ceremony. Technically it worked as an open bar for everyone lol. At the end of the 3 hour dinner, our alcohol tab was $2,000 (excluding tip). How it worked was the staff offered our guests mostly wine and we were charged per bottle (each bottle was somewhere around $35-$45 and each bottle had about 4-5 servings). If a guest requested a cocktail, we were charged for it but if that particular guest reached a certain amount, we were charged an open bar price for that person. I know, it sounds absolutely complicated and it was! We just gave the money and hoped that we covered everything.

If they have a per person price, I recommend doing it. Our wedding was 148 people, and we spent over 6K on our open consumption bar. Based on the price per drink, THIS EQUATED TO 10 DRINKS PP! If you have a drinking crowd, per person is the way to go. We had luckily put 5K to the bar before the event, so we only owed 1K ish afterwards, but it could've been a budget disaster if we wouldn't have planned for it. We kept the bar open from 6:30-12 AM. We served beer, wine, and liquor.

My venue only offers consumption and I'm terrified. My guests all drink. A lot. Cocktails are $12 a piece and I was told that I should assume 1 drink per hour. That puts my bar tab at $12,000 for 150 people. We are just hoping it doesn't come to that.

I agree that offering beer and wine and having cocktails for purchase is better than not having the option. The last wedding I went to had beer and wine only and a group of us ended up spending time at the car drinking the booze we brought. Wedding before that was signature cocktail with beer and wine and a lot of people got tired of drinking the same thing for hours and left early.

12 drinks pp sounds like alcohol poisoning..... trust your guests to be grown ups and not get sloppy drunk. I have never been to a wedding with an open bar that went south. The bartenders are paid and trained to know when to cut someone off. I wouldn't worry about that.

You are fine if you are offering wine/beer. If you want to open the bar talk to venue about your budget for a consumption bar and see if it will make sense.

Lol a consumption bar would be SUPER cheap for FH's family and OMG SPENDY for mine. I think it's a 'know your crowd' situation. If your family is full of rowdy drunks like mine, stick to open beer and wine.

I am having open bar for 4 hours with beer wine and soda all night.

Hi Dani. I "liked" and want to keep your OP at the top. I have never heard of a consumption bar. Learning through WW posts/Google.

Thanks.

AlwaysMs and Punkin, you can call it rude all you want, and you can tell me "etiquette isn't an opinion", but I still disagree. I would never go to a wedding and expect any free alcohol, except for for the toast. I go to a wedding because the couple wanted me there to celebrate with them. Like I've said before, I've been to several cash bars, and wasn't disappointed in the least. As far as hosting a dinner party at my house, that's a completely different situation altogether. For one, I wouldn't ever have 150 in my house that I need to feed and provide drinks for. Secondly, I would be buying bottles of alcohol, so everyone could have 2-3 drinks. Very different from an open bar. Very poor comparison. Furthermore, I'm not going to tell my great aunt that she's not invited to the wedding so the the closer family and friends can have all have $200/person bar tabs. Cutting the guest list so that people who want to be there with us, can't, just so we can afford endless full bar is ridiculous. It's not like I'm having only a cash bar, I'm more than willing to provide several drinks for everyone. I'm just not prepared for a 10k bar tab, and I don't want to end up with one. Like I said, anyone who shows up and is so upset over only having free wine and beer that they leave, with the option to pay for harder drinks, can let the door hit their ass on the way out. Guests should be showing up to celebrate with us, not for the free drinks. If you go to weddings mainly for free drinks, you're a shitty guest, and shouldn't have been invited in the first place.

I keep seeing the "bartender will cut people off" speech. Which to be honest, is a load of shit. Most people will be staying at the hotel, so they won't have to drive, no reason to not get drunk. People don't always act as drunk as they are, until it's too late. If bartenders cut people off when they're "supposed to", there would be a lot less drunk drivers in the world. Selling more drinks, means making more tips, Bartender isn't going to cut someone off if they're throwing a few bucks in the jar. Maybe that makes them a "bad bartender", but that's how most of them operate. I have been to weddings where people get sloppy drunk, with or without an open bar.

Wow Dani. We are in entirely different circles and different life experiences and expectations. Like, the decent expectation that bartenders cut people off if they are clearly drunk or belligerent.

My bartender - licensed, that I'm playing for - will be cutting people off. Why? Because my venue is a 20 minute drive from our hotel and I don't want anyone (my immediate family! Best friends! Fuck, even me!) to get hurt. (I'm trying to get a chartered bus but it's $1400 for 50 people).

If you go to a wedding and dont expect drinks, ok. But if I go to a wedding or party at someone's house and I don't get free drinks? You bet your ass that I'm mad. My own 1st cousin had a $30k+ wedding. No free drinks (except for 1 family out of four. Crazy story). Where did all the money go? On dumb shit, like a very extravagant dress and favors that were $5 a pop (I looked it up later). That wedding ruined my cousin's relationship with many people, including me, my mom and my aunt. Even my aunt - a deeply caring, lovely woman - says it's not the same.

That's why drinks should be free. That's the power of ettiqutte. You slight people and I have seen 1st hand hour people react to being slighted.

You say your drinks are free and you're not being rude. I say you are. Your guests needs are important and a priority. They're spending so much to be with you. You are trying to justifying all of this because people are "shitty guests". I call what it is: cheapness. You refuse to properly host because you don't want to spend the money.

Yeah, I can call it rude and you can disagree. Guess what, difference of opinion doesn't mean your right. The vast, vast majority of this site agrees with me. All drinks should be free. Full stop.

You're planning a wedding you can't afford or at the very least, picked a bad bar package or bad venue.

Dani, people who are drunk can't decide that they are going act less drunk than they are. That's ridiculous. It isn't a decision -- it's an affect on the brain. So, that argument makes no sense. Drunks can't fake sobriety. You said something about it "being a load of shit" that bartenders cut off drunk guests. Do you work in the wedding industry, because I do. Those bartenders will lose their jobs -- and be held personally liable -- if they screw up one time and an accident involving a guest occurs -- and the companies that hire them will be in huge trouble, financially speaking, if they hire bartenders who do not do their job. And as for the drunk drivers on the road, do you have any statistic that proves that even a minor percentage of them were leaving weddings? And if they were leaving weddings, what percentage of those weddings had licensed bartenders hired to handle the crowd? I was at a wedding two weeks ago, and I spoke with the bartender. It was a full, top shelf open bar wedding, and she was diligently doing her job. I watched her, and then I spoke to her. She was totally fixated on cutting people off. A professional, licensed bartender will do their job, without apology. A Craigslist home mixologist without a license, but with a small price tag, might screw up -- but that's on the cheap hosts. It all comes down to money.

Dani, how many weddings have you been to? Not many, I suppose, or not many that are properly hosted. This is the most telling sentence of your posts, "I also don't want an open bar to be taken advantage of, and have several people run up hundred plus dollar tabs just because it's free." So, what's you issue? Drunk drivers or the bill that's connected to an open bar?

Let's start with, "It's free". Really, is it? Is that what you believe? You know what's free? Declining your invitation, staying home, sending you nothing, and calling it a day. That's what's free for an invitee on your wedding day. If they come, as they will, because you are a family member or a friend, they're going to spend money -- lots of it. So, can we just stop with "free" verbiage, once and for all? And can we stop referring to these gift carrying people as "shitty guests" because they expect a cocktail at a party? Attending a wedding is not free. Dinner is not free. The bar is not free. The experience is not free. I could break it down, but I'm too tired to do it...again.

Nobody comes to a wedding to "take advantage" of an open bar. For adults, it just isn't that unusual and unattainable. For 19 year olds, maybe; but adults can indulge anytime they want to. Most guests will likely have three drinks -- possibly four over the course of five or six hours. They don't suddenly become binge drinkers because the bar is open. An individual who enjoys two or three vodka and cranberries over the course of six hours isn't going to suddenly think, "Hey, it's free (despite all the money I spent to come here), so let me get nine drinks instead of my normal three -- because, hey, it's free!" If people are so into getting drunk, they can stop at the liquor store any night of the week, pick up whatever, take it home, and have one hell of party -- for the cost of the bottle (not the added cost of clothing, travel, a gift, and lodging). This is such a ludicrous argument, and at it's core, it's always masks the same truth -- the couple doesn't want to pay for it.

Don't dangle a liquor stocked bar in your guests' faces unless you intend to pay for it. If you offer liquor for a charge, there's a reason for it. You already know what the reason is -- it's a catalyst for the party you aren't going to pay for, but hope your guests will. Just serve beer and wine if that's what you can afford, and please, stop blaming adults for being adults.

It has to do with budget...every single time.

As I've already said, I've been to several weddings, with all types of bar situations. And if someone is belligerent, then that falls into the "too late" category that I mentioned. Someone can go up to a bar and order 5 drinks within an hour, because it doesn't hit them early enough. I've been that person who drinks a lot in a short amount of time, and then is way too drunk. Weddings are not the only place with bartenders either, if you didn't know. I wasn't referring to weddings only, but bartenders in general. Like I (again) already said, most, if not all, of the guests will be staying at the hotel that is our venue. So no, I don't think drunk driving will be an issue. But yes, people DO tend to drink more if it's free. If that wasn't true, then you wouldn't be able to say "people will only have 1-2 drinks and then leave early". Not to mention (again) people are more likely to leave half full drinks around, and just go get a new one.

If wanting to keep the bar cost closer to $5000 instead of $10,000 or more is being cheap, then go right on thinking that. The opinions of "holier than thou" strangers that I'll (luckily) never meet have no effect on me.

And I sincerely hope that there's a lot more to that story with your cousin than they just didn't provide alcohol. I mean, I completely understand being salty about it, with a 30k wedding with no drinks provided. But it sounds rather petty if you let that ruin a relationship.

Honestly, just both of your guys' attitudes towards this subject gross me out. I'm sure you feel the same way towards me, which is fine. I just can't imagine being the type of person to get pissy because someone offers a cash bar in addition to free beer and wine. I cannot think of a single instance where I would expect a bride and groom to sacrifice things like a nice dress, or nice venue so that I can have free drinks all night. I cannot imagine telling people that they aren't invited, just to make sure the people who are invited can drink anything and everything they please. That just sounds so incredibly self centered, as a guest.

We had a consumption bar out here in the 'burbs of Boston. We had 85 guests and I estimated that about 1/3 were drinkers (like DRINKERS) 1/3 were casual drinkers, and 1/3 non-drinkers. Our bar bill was about $1500.